- day care (part time) - great suggestion to tour potential child care places, instead of just looking them up online!
- I am maxing out my 401K & bumping up my own Roth IRA (money with which I play to aggressively invest - it's been going great!!).
- I am also (somewhat) relying on my mother to help pre and post birth so the part-time childcare as she wouldn't have it any other way :)
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I have also been financially supporting my mother, made some bad investments at the wrong time in my life, and I haven't been making 130K for 10 years but yea, valid points. My mother is my best friend in the world and she made it clear she wouldn't be able to help with picking up baby, bathing, staying up all night and that's ok - having her emotional support and her cooking is very much appreciated. She's incredibly agreeable, the smartest woman I know, in good health, on her own for 30 years raising 3 kids + a business, etc. and I am her baby for whom she wants nothing but to see happy with a child and (ideally) a loving husband but since that's not happening at the moment, she's understanding of my situation.
So, with your income I honestly don't think the financial side of things is insurmountable, as it sounds like you maybe made some subpar choices in the past but have learned from them, now have a more frugal lifestyle, etc. $100k in student loans is a lot, but it is not like, say...$100k in credit card debt. It doesn't sound like you are set on early retirement so I think if you're willing to work into your 60s yes, you can manage it from a money perspective.
HOWEVER!!! I do also think you really need to get a better handle on childcare costs and also on what the first year of motherhood especially are going to be like.
First, you say you are going to rely on your mother to help with the baby so you will only need PT care. Then you say your mother won't be able to help with "picking up baby, bathing, staying up all night and that's ok". So...what childcare is your mother realistically going to be able to provide? it sounds like she might not be able to handle the weight of a baby? An infant <6 months needs to be fed 6-12x/day. This involves picking them up and holding them. They can't move anywhere on their own so if you want to take them from one room to another you have to pick them up and carry them. Even after 6 months, it's still a loooooooong time before they stop constantly wanting to be picked up, held, and carried. And then once they get older, they get more willful and sometimes you have to pick them up and haul them off to bed, home, wherever, and they WILL use their entire bodies to resist you if they don't want to do whatever it is you need/want them to do. My mom is also 70 and in reasonably good health and when we have visited recently she's made it pretty clear she is not certain of her ability to physically keep up with our toddler if he decides he doesn't want to leave the park, cross the street (while in the middle of the street), etc. She needs my dad or another adult around to do the really physical stuff. And I really have a pretty compliant and well behaved 2 year old, compared to some I have seen. I think you need to have a long hard think about how much help your mother can safely provide, and anticipate that you will have to look elsewhere for much of your childcare. Hopefully she can fill in some gaps to give you some more flexibility in what you need.
So, next up is the cost of getting someone else to care for your kids. I am really shocked at the idea of being able to get FT care in DC for $1200/month. I live in a HCOL area also (SF bay area) and here are some samples of what childcare for a <2 year old might be:
In-home daycare (generally the cheapest option): $1400-$1800/month. I have seen a couple under <$1400 and they were pretty dismal: almost no natural light, crowded, and very small outdoor playspace. You are usually relying on 1-2 people in these cases so closures due to illness or vacation can be more frequent. I toured several near our home and about half the ones I visited had scheduled vacations of 2-3 weeks/year, for example. Then they might be closed for holidays that your office is not closed for. So you will need to have some backup childcare options available there.
Larger daycare center: $1700-$2700/month. Probably somewhat more reliable as they have more staff, but they can still have a lot of scheduled closure days (a co-worker of mine has just started her son at a place that has 35 scheduled closure days each year!).
Nanny: A personal nanny for just your kid is $20-25/hr. Add 10-15% if you want to do it legally with W-2, payroll taxes, etc (and legally you are supposed to do that if you are paying the nanny more than $1900/yr). Your nanny will likely expect to get paid 52 weeks/yr (if you won't, she can find someone else who will!).
Nannyshare: Hire a nanny to watch your kid +1-2 other kids. In our area, the current cost is about $12/hr per kid for 3 kids, $15/hr per kid for 2 kids. Again, budget more to do it legally. This can save you some $$, BUT...you either have to have a space suitable for hosting 1-2 other kids, or schlep your kids to another house every day, which makes it no more convenient than a daycare. Also, the other family (or families) may drop out of the share, and if you can't find another family to fill their spot right away, you wind up eating some costs.
Finally, in our area at least, daycare spots are HARD to find. You may have a certain amount you plan to pay, but find that none of the daycares in your price range have a spot open, so then you wind up being stuck with a more expensive option. Here's what wound up happening with us:
4 months pregnant: found a cheaper daycare ($1400/month) with a spot likely available in 8 months. Perfect! Then spot fell through due to another kid having a sibling on the way, so we were back to square one when we found out (when my son was about a week old).
0-3 months: Maternity leave, so no costs (well, I was at about 50% of my regular pay).
3-5 months: Found a temporary part-time in-home daycare setup and husband and I both did some work from home and used some vacation days so that we only needed care 3 days/week. $225/week, or about $975/month.
5-6 months: Nannyshare, full-time as we could no longer finagle enough WFH/vacation to continue our 3 days/week deal. Intended to do this with 3 families, but could not secure a 3rd family in time. Set up payroll and all that, cost was close to $2800/month. With a 3rd family it went down to about $2100. Other family was also making noise about having nanny prepare kids food when they started solids and that costing another $5/day, so that would have been another ~$150/month or an awkward showdown about what the hell a 6 month old is eating that costs $5/day.
6 months-age 2: got a spot in a daycare center in my office, initially $2000/month, then $2100/month, now down to $1850/month as kid has turned two. From years 3-5 I am guessing it will be about $1700/month (cost goes down as they get older, but fees overall go up every year....).
All this is with my husband in the picture, which means he is able to help with getting the kid to/from care, sometimes stay home with the kid if he is sick, step up and do more childcare if I am sick, and take care of the kid on the weekends so that I have some time to get stuff done or just be on my own. If I did not have a husband in the picture I think I really would need *some* kind of weekend childcare (maybe this is an area your mom can help out with?), and babysitters are about $20/hr. I also know of parents who have to hire a nanny/babysitter to do pickup or drop off from daycare because one of the parents travels a lot or the daycare hours are not compatible with their work schedule (e.g. daycare doesn't open until 8:30 but both parents have to be at work by 8:30).
It may only be for a few years, but I do think for that period you are going to need to budget more than $1200/month for childcare. Probably quite a bit more. If not, hats off to you.
